Arizona Geological Society
2025 Speaker Series
Tuesday, 7 January 2025 | 5:30 - 8:00 PM
Location: Hexagon Mining Division Office
40 East Congress Street, Suite 150, Tucson, Arizona 85701
Parking: On the street or parking garage (Old Pueblo Parking)
Social Hour with Sandwiches from Beyond Bread (5:30-6:30 PM), Presentation (6:35 PM)
For those planning to attend the event, please register by 6:00 PM on Sunday, January 5, 2025
For those unable to attend, here is an URL link
The Arizona Geological Society thanks Hexagon
for generously providing the venue and drinks
Arizona's Deep Subsurface: Exploring Energy Resiliency through Gas Storage, Mineral-Sequestration, and Geothermal Resources
Tawnya Wilson and Brian Gootee
Arizona Geological Survey
Abstract: The U.S. and other countries are making major investments to evaluate the deep-subsurface for storage and energy options to meet growing demands for clean and alternative energy, energy resiliency, and management of energy-related wastes. In Arizona, deep, subsurface geology has excellent potential to accommodate the energy transition through salt cavern gas storage, energy byproduct disposal and sequestration, and enhanced geothermal energy.
Forty-seven percent of Arizona’s energy comes from natural gas, with the remainder divided between nuclear (27%), solar & wind (11%), coal (10%), and hydroelectric (5%). Arizona’s major power utility companies are committed to providing 100% clean and carbon-free energy by 2050. Thus, Arizona must diversify its energy supply, transport, and storage options, while managing emissions through storage and utilization safely and with minimal risks.
Arizona Geological Survey’s Basin Analysis research team manages subsurface datasets, provides data to the public; conducts basin-scale research; develops basin models; and collaborates with stakeholders, industry, and neighboring states to advance our understanding of subsurface resources and data deficiencies. In this presentation, we highlight recent and ongoing projects aimed at evaluating primarily subsurface geology in the state, including regional-scale carbon management through utilization and storage, research in bedded salt deposits for different types of gas storage, carbon dioxide mineralization in mafic rocks, 3D basin modeling, and basin characterization through new acquisition of geophysics and stratigraphic test well drilling. Education and outreach to Arizona’s stakeholders, public, regulatory agencies, and industry are critical to these efforts.
Exploration, research, and collaboration are key to evaluating subsurface energy and storage options at the local and regional scale. A single sedimentary basin or subbasin can provide one or more options, including but not limited to: deep-enhanced geothermal energy in dry basement rocks, gas storage in bedded salt deposits, pore space and alkaline rocks for carbon dioxide sequestration and mineralization in hypersaline aquifers, and pore space for saltwater and produced water disposal. As part of the energy transition over the next 20 to 30 years, we anticipate regional and site-scale research and collaboration to identify resources in the deep subsurface through drilling, geophysics, risk assessment, and stakeholder engagement.
Speaker Bio: Tawnya Wilson is a Research Geologist on the Basin Analysis Team at the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS). She specializes in subsurface characterization studies in sedimentary basins to support carbon sequestration, gas storage, and geothermal development in the state. Prior to joining AZGS in 2022, she worked in the oil and gas industry as a senior development geologist where she did strategic horizontal well planning, performed regional reservoir characterization studies for water disposal, and worked as an operations geologist supporting the drilling phase. She received her M.S. degree in geology from Northern Arizona University and her B.S. degree in geology from California State University Long Beach. Her research interests include subsurface characterization, basin evolution, energy resources, sedimentology, paleoclimatology, and hydrogeology of the American Southwest.
Brian Gootee is a senior research geologist and tribal liaison with the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona. He has worked at the AZGS since 2007 and has over three decades of experience and over eighty publications in multiple fields: geologic mapping, sedimentology, stratigraphy, sequestration, geologic hazards, hydrogeology, and outreach. Since 2020, Brian has led the Basin Analysis Group at the Geological Survey specializing in research of the deep subsurface for carbon dioxide sequestration and mineralization, hydrogen gas storage, and energy-related ecosystems. He also completed several basin-scale hydrogeologic characterization of Arizona basins for APP’s and AAWS certificates while at AZGS, and previously as a hydrogeologist with Dames & Moore (now URS) and Clear Creek Associates. He received his BS and MS degree at Arizona State University. He is a native of Texas and enjoys spending time with his family, backpacking, silversmithing, and woodworking.
Hexagon Mining Division Office - 40 East Congress Street,
Suite 150, Tucson, Arizona 85701
